D&D November 20 and 23 (and a fit of future musing)

[cellio]

The D&D game I play in has a definite story, and while the GM has sometimes been frustrated by unpredictable players not going in the directions he envisioned, it's a very cooperative game. We all want to tell a good story. Recently, we had every expectation of reaching a local climax with lots of drama and exposition -- and then the dice interfered.

The group has been on a quest of sorts. Months ago in game time and about two years ago in real time, we learned a legend about Turok's sword that strongly implied that we needed to take it to the Gorge of Fire. After assorted preprations (like, y'know, figuring out where that is and how to get there), we finally set off to do this.

The trek through this harsh climate (think "elemental plane of fire", sort of) has occupied the last several game sessions. There's been a lot of combat and a lot of mood-setting. And finally, we got to the end. Where we met the salamanders who guard this place, who we must defeat in a duel if we are to see the oracle (who in turn will tell us how to enhance the sword, and I hope will tell us other things such as dropping hints about how to defeat the big baddie who's been troubling us).

We planned to play on a Saturday evening so that we would not be overly constrained by early work mornings. The GM (ralphmelton) had every expectation that we would fight the salamanders, win, and visit the oracle, where he'd leave things on a dramatic high note. He even posted about it ahead of time. That would have been nifty.

The party consists of the following:

• Turok: half-dragon fighter (10th level?); wields Kotara-nar, a fairly impressive magic sword (the one we hoped to enhance further)
• Kyle: halfling ranger/rogue (12th level total, but I'm not sure of the division); very dexterous and very good at sneak attacks; fights with two daggers
• Liandra: half-elf druid (12th level); tries to provide support rather than getting into melee, but handles melee pretty well when shape-shifted into a bear :-)
• Larissa: human sorceror (10th level) / paladin (2nd level); tends toward direct-damage spells, flight, and polymorph

The party has some associates who stayed behind for this particular journey: Liandra's awakened animal companion (Slade, a wolf), Kyle's animal friend (Tasha, a riding dog), Larissa's familiar (Hrolf, an owl), and Charlos the ghostly paladin. (For those who've followed this campaign in the past and are wondering, Prolix's player -- and therefore Prolix -- has left the game.)

There were four salamanders, three larger male ones and one smaller female one who was obviously a spell-caster:

• Hamid: the only one who wears armor
• Farooq: fights with a mucking-huge spear (20' reach)
• Zaid: fights with a spiked chain that turned out to be very effective for disarming, tripping, and grappling
• Indzihar: I was guessing sorceror, which turned out to be right

Indzihar had proposed randomizing the start of the duel, which I wrote about previously. (Note: the specific account there is not from the first encounter with the salamanders.) We went along with this, which was probably even a good idea. Not sure.

So on that Saturday night, we set out to fight the salamanders -- and got whumped. Some of it was bad tactics; a lot of it was bad luck. I posted a rough turn log in the game journal, ralph_dnd. They hit us hard, neutralizing our strongest fighter (Turok) and dealing so much damage to our other fighter (Kyle) that he almost died. We had to yield.

This had not been in Ralph's plans, and we were all kind of bummed by it. I realized on the way home that my character (Larissa), the last to yield, should have proposed that those still in the fight each return to our corners and then lay on again -- her against the four of them. It wouldn't have helped and she would have just ended up yielding a turn or two later, but I think it would have been in character for her. She's kind of spunky that way sometimes (unlike her player). Oh well.

Right after we yielded I (being somewhat cheeky, and willing to rely on the good will due a charisma of 21) requested a rematch. I argued that if this exact configuration was not permitted (i.e. you have one chance at the group fight), perhaps we could put up our champion against theirs. I made a heart-felt appeal, pointing out that we were there not for personal gain but to fight a larger danger in the land. (This is true.) I said that if we were just there for our own advancement we'd accept the loss and be on our way, but there was a larger issue here.

(Also, I really didn't know how Ralph was going to recover from this turn of events otherwise.)

They ended up agreeing to a rematch the next (game) day, and we decided that the players were tired and we would have to take it up in a few days. Normally we play every two weeks, but we were all eager to reconvene and try this again before Thanksgiving.

We had some nice play-by-email bits before the followup game. That's one of the things that's been really neat about the game; we use email not just to discuss tactics and food plans but also to flesh out details that it's hard to get out in real time during game sessions, such as extended conversations with NPCs. (We also, sometimes, have pure-roleplay sessions to do stuff like that. The next game will be one, I think.) In this case, there was dissention in the salamander ranks, with one of them arguing (loudly) that we should not get the rematch; they held the argument in their native tongue outside our door, but Larissa just happened to have a potion of tongues so she eavesdropped. :-)

We gathered for the rematch, and this time the prep rounds dragged on and on and on. (This was the prompt for my probability post.) I took the view that sorcerors basically never run out of spells, so as protective spells wore out I recast them. (We also had a wand for one of those spells.) When the fight finally started, everyone was pretty loaded up with defensive magic. Here's a turn log.

This fight went much better. We were able to split them up somewhat, and (unbeknownst to us at the time) they had not healed all their damage from the previous day the way we had. (We have a druid, after all. We thought one of them was a druid because he summoned an elemental in the first fight, but it turns out that's just something salamanders do.) Not that we had done that much damage in the previous fight, but I digress.

This fight was very exciting in terms of physical combat, and Liandra got a chance to make good use of some druid spells she doesn't often get to pull out. The thing that surprised me, though it shouldn't have, is that Larissa was almost purely support. I used very little offensive magic, because I was instead trying to counterspell (or dispel) things their sorceror did. The effectiveness of that varied, but I was the obvious candidate for that and this freed everyone else to engage more directly. It's not something that has happened a lot for Larissa, so it was an interesting and eye-opening change.

I suspect that our impending fight with the big nasty vampires will be similar in that respect. I'd been assuming that Garrett (the big nasty) was an assassin; that might be true too but he's also a blackguard, a fallen paladin. We know from a previous encounter that he's very fast, very strong, and, well, a vampire. I'd fear this fight even without his at-least-ninth-level-wizard vampiric minion, Melisande. I really do worry that party members will die in that fight.

I suppose that if Melisande and I essentially square off during that fight, that'll be a net win for our side. (On the other hand, did I mention Garrett's artifact-grade evil dagger? Err.) I didn't end up doing all that much during our last fight either, because I was the dispenser of protection-from-evil spells and had to keep renewing them. (I don't know the spell; I have a wand.) Between that and dispel magic, I imagine I'll be pretty busy. Of course, if Garrett is smart -- and being 500 years old, he's learned a thing or two -- he and Melisande will double-team me from the start, and that would be very bad.

Comments

[ian-gunn.livejournal.com]

The character description of Kyle brought to mind the similar character from this (http://www.giantitp.com/cgi-bin/GiantITP/ootscript) comic strip. I'm sure Kyle is not like Belkar but I thought you'd be amused by it.

[mrpeck.livejournal.com]

Garrett is a blackguard? I missed that. I thought he was a rogue turned vampire.

[nickjong.livejournal.com]

Liandra got a chance to make good use of some druid spells she doesn't often get to pull out.

Do you mean Quench, Quench, and more Quench? My eighth level half-elf druid finally found cause to memorize this spell against some salamanders, too. :o)